Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Is Senator Whitehouse Just a Hypocrite or Something Worse

Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse attacked the second day of the Loretta Lynch hearings for examining
the record of Eric Holder. Holder’s
Justice Department is one of the most political in history and we have only
scratched the surface of what may be going on during his tenure. It seems relevant to examine if Lynch has the
ability and desire to address these many serious and deep problems. As Chairman Grassley responded:

And the Department of
Justice under its current leadership has failed – failed – to meet some of its
most basic responsibilities.Every single one of
these witnesses – every single one of them – speaks directly to Ms. Lynch’s
nomination. And the question is
whether she takes these issues seriously. Will she work to fix them?And I’d note that it
wasn’t too long ago that Democrats agreed it was perfectly appropriate to call
witnesses to address what they viewed as problems at the Department.I’d note to the naysayer
on the other side, it wasn’t beneath the dignity of the Committee when they
were in charge. So why would it be now?

Chairman Grassley went
on to cite one specific area.

So, for instance, maybe
it doesn’t bother you that the IRS targeted conservatives, and the Department
doesn’t seem to have taken the issue seriously.But it bothers me a
great deal. And I want to know
if Ms. Lynch is committed to tackling this problem, and a range of
others.

Ironically this is an
area where Senator Whitehouse was involved.
Briefly:

[Disgraced former IRS
Commissioner Lois] Lerner’s agenda was clear. Days after the meeting with
Pilger, she addressed the Citizens United decision in a talk at Duke
University.“They want the IRS to
fix the problem,” Lerner said. “So everybody is screaming at us right now: ‘Fix
it before the [2010 midterm] election. Can’t you see how much these people are
spending?’”. . .Three years later, [DOJ’s]
Pilger and Lerner were still at it. In a May 2013 e-mail uncovered by Judicial Watch,
Lerner discussed with a colleague a call from Pilger on the thoughts of Sen.
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) about building “false-statement cases” against
tax-exempt groups.Whitehouse’s “idea,”
Lerner wrote, was “that DoJ could piece together false-statement cases about
applicants who ‘lied’ on their [tax-exempt applications].” She added, “DoJ is
feeling like it needs to respond.”

Senator Whitehouse’s complaints are seemingly
at a minimum hypocritical considering past Democrat actions and may be efforts to protect
himself from his own ties from one of DOJ’s scandals.